2019 HIGHLIGHTS: BOOKS: FICTION
On a Knife Edge
From Amitav Ghosh to Ian McEwan
Nandini Nair | 03 Jan, 2019
Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh (Hamish Hamilton)
On a visit to his birthplace, Kolkata, a Brooklyn-based dealer in rare books finds his life becoming entangled with an ancient legend about the goddess of snakes, Manasa Devi. While visiting a temple, deep within the mangrove forests of Bengal, he has a disturbing encounter with the most feared, and revered, of Indian snakes, a King Cobra. This is followed by a series of uncanny episodes that seem to dissolve the borders of the human and non-human.